Regarding the Islamic view of women, there is an essential point that I would like to discuss. This Islamic view is the opposite of the western view of women. The western view of women is an insulting view. They call it “freedom”, but it is not in fact freedom. Over the past two, three decades, westerners have chosen beautiful names for their crimes. Whenever they committed murder, whenever they plundered a country, whenever they enslaved people, whenever they confiscated other nations’ sources of wealth, whenever they imposed wars on nations and whenever they committed other crimes, they chose deceptive and beautiful names for their actions: liberation, human rights, democracy and other such things. Describing the western attitude towards women as “freedom” is a lie. It is not freedom. The basis of western culture is that women should be presented in society as a product, an object that men can benefit from. Promoting immodest clothing is a step in this direction.

Over the past 100, 200 years violence against women has been on the rise. There has been no decrease in this regard. Sexual freedom and unprincipled sexual behaviors in the west have not curbed sexual desires, which are natural and instinctive. In the past they used to promote the idea that men and women should be allowed to have free relationships with each other so that their sexual desires are diminished. Later on it became clear that what happens is the opposite. The more men and women are allowed to have free relationships with each other in society, the more the resulting situation increases sexual desires. Today westerners do not feel ashamed of promoting homosexuality as a value. This makes any dignified human being blush, but they do not feel ashamed. The western view of women is a degenerate, flawed, misleading and wrong view. The Islamic view of women brings about dignity, honor, growth and an independent identity for women. This is our claim and we can prove it with very compelling reasons.

In an Islamic environment, a woman achieves scholarly growth. She achieves personal growth. She achieves ethical growth. She achieves political growth. She becomes a pioneer in the most essential social issues. Yet she remains a woman. Being a woman is an advantage, a source of pride. Isolating women from womanly environments and characteristics will not bring about any honor for women. Housekeeping, raising children and taking care of one’s husband must not be considered a source of disgrace for women. Western culture made the family collapse. Today one of the great problems of the western world is the breakup of the family and the increase in the number of abandoned children. The west will suffer from the consequences. Social developments build up over time. The west will be harmed most by this problem and the flashy materialistic civilization of the west will collapse along the fault lines of this problem.

Islam regards women as dignified. Men and women share the same human characteristics. A human being is a human being before being a man or a woman. People are equal as far as their human nature is concerned. This is the Islamic view. Allah the Exalted has bestowed certain physical characteristics on men and women. Both men and women play a role in creation, in the growth and transcendence of humanity and in the course of history, but women’s role is more important that men’s role. The most important duty of human beings is to help humanity survive through reproduction. And in this regard, the role of women is not comparable with the role of men. This is why the home environment is important. This is why the family is important. This is why imposing restrictions on the sexual instinct is important. This is the view that should be adopted on Islamic issues and sharia. The west, which has strayed away from the right path, calls these things “limitations”, and calls its misleading bondage [of women] “freedom”. These are among tricks that the west has played.

* Ayatollah Khamenei’s Speech to International Conference on “Women and Islamic Awakening” 11/07/2012

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